The Emmaus Project: Stories of Suffering and Healing through a Christian Lens — a Qualitative Study of Aging Seniors Kathryn Thompson, Medical Student, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine

Introduction: Many elderly men and women endure the physical and cognitive repercussions of aging as well as the personal challenges of watching friends and family pass before them. Up to 21% of residents in a nursing home have reported experiences of nursing home neglect within the last year (1). Aging-related issues can lead to despair, abuse, depression, and existential loneliness (2). Moreover, discussions regarding prognosis and death are often evaded, and few opportunities in healthcare are provided for psychological and spiritual processing and healing (3). Our study aims to address the challenges of aging by drawing upon the patient's spiritual resources in a group setting. We hope to better understand in their own words, what senior men and women are going through and how spiritual processing shapes their narratives of suffering and healing.

Methods: The Emmaus Project is a multi-method qualitative research study consisting of a faith-based focus group of 12 senior men and women at Montgomery Place Retirement Community, conducted from October 2018-December 2018. The Emmaus model was derived from the Scripture story [Luke 24:13-25] and developed by the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame for high school ministry, before being piloted at the University of Chicago for a senior population. It consists of 7 weekly sessions, each focusing on a different theme of the Christian journey of suffering and healing as witnessed in the Emmaus story: (1) accompaniment, (2) lamentation, (3) doubt and mercy, (4) grace and beauty, (5) hospitality, (6) communion, and (7) discipleship. Sessions are 1 hour long and consist of group prayer, scripture catechesis, art activities, and reflection. Open-ended, qualitative questionnaires are distributed at the beginning and end of each session, and participants are given 5-10 minutes to submit handwritten responses. Each questionnaire focuses on the theme of that week in relation to the experience of aging.

Analysis: Phenomenological qualitative analysis will be conducted to describe the unique experiences of aging in Christian seniors. An inductive approach will be used to analyze the data for new themes or frameworks that arise within the questionnaire responses, and data will be sorted into these frameworks. QSR Nvivo software is used to transcribe, edit, store, code, and display data.​Conclusion: We hope to provide the medical community with a richer understanding of the spiritual experiences of aging Christians, as offered by our participants' accounts. We aim to identify central themes or narratives in the lives of aging Christian seniors. And we hope that by engaging the tools and language of the Christian faith, aging men and women might find the increased capacity for spiritual processing and consolation in discussing their journeys of suffering and healing.